Dead Presidents
Rules
Outwit your opponents and take the money.
Quick Facts:
2 -8 Players
5 minutes per round
Easy Difficulty
Objective: Capture the most cash cards in the deck.
Deal the entire deck face down, one pile for each player. Players may look at and arrange their cards. [Special note: If playing with 5 players, remove three $1s from the deck before dealing and if playing with 7 players remove one $1]
1. Set Up
2. How to Play
This is a simple trick-taking game similar to War (with some cool strategic wrinkles). On each turn, players choose one card from their hand, push it to the center, and then everyone flips over their cards at once. Here’s what happens next:
-
One player takes the trick - If one player has the highest card, for example, plays a $100 which beats out the $50 and all the other cards. This player takes the trick and places the cards face down in front of them into their vault.
-
There is a tie for the highest card - For example, two or more players play the $50, and there is no $100 played. In the case of a tie the cards are set aside into the communal bank (more on this later).
-
Repeat the two steps above until all players’ hands are empty.
After all the cards have been played, take the bank, shuffle it and deal it out to all the players. Continue playing until it becomes obvious that shuffling the bank and dealing out the cards will always result in a tie. The round is over.
3. Scoring
After the round is over count all the money you have in your vault. This is your total for the round. Any money left tied up in the bank is not awarded to any player. We recommend a pen and paper to keep a tally of scores and play to a pre-agreed amount of money. $5,000 to become champion is common. For shorter games, you can agree that everyone deals just once and whoever has the most cash is the winner!
4. Variations
See DEADER PRESIDENTS for a more advanced team version of this game for 4 or 6 players.